


Cheer Up

by SoullessSerenity



Series: Ficlet prompt fillings [35]
Category: Persona 3
Genre: Ficlet, Friendship, Gen, Persona 3 Spoilers, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoullessSerenity/pseuds/SoullessSerenity
Summary: Junpei wasn't good with words. He wasn't the best at knowing what to say like Hamuko was. But he also couldn't just not even try to do anything as he saw how sad she was after what had happened to Shinjiro.(Prompt #26: “You think you could do better?")
Relationships: Arisato Minako & Iori Junpei
Series: Ficlet prompt fillings [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995523
Kudos: 7





	Cheer Up

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up for some spoilers for Persona 3, in case you haven't finished that yet.
> 
> Shinjiro could be either dead or hospitalised. Either way, Hamuko's reaction to it is the same.

Junpei often wished he was as good at cheering people up as Hamuko was. Heck, sometimes he would feel jealous of  _ all _ of her qualities. He wished he could have her strength, or her smarts.

But, more than anything, at that moment he only wished he could know exactly what to do to cheer her up. She had done that for him and for the other members so many times. He wondered just how she could be so perceptive. But he couldn’t stand to see her so sad and depressed after what had happened to Shinjiro.

She had tried to hide it for quite a long while, but he had caught her sobbing in her room when he had intended to ask her to help him with homework. That was how much it took him to realise she had been hiding how hurt she was…

He just wanted to see her smiling again, but he knew it wouldn’t be so easy. It wasn’t exactly something one could simply “get over”.

But he still wanted to try. He wasn’t as good as her at using words, but he could at least try to cheer her up in his own way.

So he asked her to play some video games with him. Even if he could just distract her for a little while, that would be enough for him.

Despite accepting his invitation, Hamuko didn’t really do much aside from just… Sitting there beside him. She wasn’t even trying to fake a smile anymore. Maybe she had figured it would be pointless to keep trying to hide it from him, since he had already seen her sobbing and all.

But it made him feel even worse, in a way. Seeing her all curled up on the couch while he played. He couldn’t even concentrate properly and kept dying.

“You suck at this game, huh?” She asked in a mumbly tone.

Junpei was silent for a moment, but then smiled. At least she seemed to be trying to start a conversation and do things. “You think you could do better?” He asked, offering her the controller.

She just looked at it for a second, but then sighed and took it. She restarted the level, concentrating on the game and nothing else. But Junpei didn’t even look at the game for that long. He paid attention to Hamuko instead.

She wasn’t smiling, but she at least wasn’t looking as gloomy as before. His plan seemed to have worked at least a little, then.

He only set his attention back on the TV when he realised she was almost done with the level. She had gotten there much faster than he had in any of his 10 tries.

And once the screen had shown the ‘Stage Cleared’ text, she sighed. Right when he was about to congratulate her…

“Hey, what’s wrong you won! I thought you were cheering up…” Junpei moved just a little closer to her, just enough for him to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry, I was just… Right in the zone. And then I was just brought right back into reality…” She sighed again. “Sorry. You did this to cheer me up…”

“You don’t need to apologise for that. You don’t need to apologise for feeling like this.” He was the one who sighed this time. He wasn’t good at talking about stuff like this, but he couldn’t just avoid it completely forever. “You and Aragaki-senpai got very close quite quickly. So I can only imagine what you must be feeling like. If something like that ever happened to Chidori, I can bet I would be just as down as you. But you don’t have to hide it from us.”

“Old habits die hard, you know?”

That left him a little puzzled, to say the least. Was this not the first time she had hidden her true feelings from them? Just for how long had she been so used to doing that?

“Hey, I’m not the best with words, but… If you ever need to do something else to distract yourself, you can come to me, okay? You’ve done a lot for me, so it’s only fair I do the same.”

She had managed to smile a little, it was the first time he had seen her smile that day. “Thanks, Junpei.”

He giggled and gave her some pats on the back. And just as he did that, Mitsuru arrived at the lounge. Hamuko had started to smile wider, but Junpei could tell it wasn’t a genuine smile.

What he could do wasn’t much, but if he could do even something small to help his best friend feel better, he would. And, he hoped, one day he would know just what was actually going on in her head and what her true feelings were.


End file.
